Wednesday....we're finally hitting our groove again after the extended weekend. I finally have most of the kid's conferences behind me....I had Andrew and Alex's last week and Amanda's today...I meet with Alex's teacher on Thursday and then I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Andrew's conference was probably the best that he has....ever had...ever. For the first time in his academic "career" it was a glowing review. They are letting him work at his own pace in certain subjects and he has kind of hit the ground running. I'm so happy that we made this choice for him....soooo glad. It is written all over his face too.....

Aidan is settling into preschool...but he still can't separate from me each morning without pretending like he is asleep. The Montessori teacher's pick up the kids from inside of the cars...so Aidan pretends each morning to be sleeping while the teacher unbuckles him and helps him out of the van with his eyes closed. Then he bounces to the street, and doesn't look back.
He is fine once he's inside the classroom. That's good news!

He is such a cutie ....he just walked by in his jammies and said "Mommy, you know I'm going to marry you".

Amanda's conference wasn't as earth-shattering as I had feared. The school had called a meeting with all of her teacher and I have just been nervous and sweating over it all week. Instead of it being a negative thing they pretty much wanted to touch base with us because she is a new student and has had her ups and downs academically over the last few weeks. Her grade report was ok too....not fabulous, but not something earth shattering. I had expected it to be worse. She has shown gradual improvement. One teacher kept harping on her "attention" problems. This teacher has kind of let me know that she thought there might be an ADD issue. :huh:

So...I talked about her tactile learning style and I explained that when Amanda has to engage hrself in an activy while learning, she does well and is able to concentrate and learn. (I gave the TPR and spanish learning as the example). The teacher said she didn't think it made a difference....but...the vice principal (thank you, thank you, thank you) said "I wonder how she does in music with the scale thing they are working on". Apparently, the kids are having to learn hand motions with the do re mi's or something and there is a lot of frustration/confusion over it because it is this long.....musical piece...or something...."If she can learn things through tactile experiences...maybe she has mastered the song" and she looked at me.

She had Amanda join our conference and somewhere in there said "hey, you take voice lessons, don't you. Do you know the do re mi thing from music class for the concert? Can you show it to me?

Amanda looked at her and said "ok. She proceeded to do the do-re-mi thing for a minute with hand motions...it was smoooth and seamless (though she refused to sing...she only would speak it ) The vice principal pretty much said "wow" and then confirmed what I have said all along...Amanda appears to really "get it" when she has to "do it". So the teachers and Amanda and I together brainstormed ways to help her. It was....great.

Again I feel validated that in the end we made the right decision about pulling her out of the school....They also mentioned her shyness, which is so funny to me. At home she is gregarious and funny....but at school she has always been very quiet and shy. Every single teacher commented that Amanda just wants to "blend" and that she won't ask for help no matter what. She will do an entire worksheet wrong instead of asking for help even when she knows she is doing it wrong. :huh: They asked her why and she couldn't answer....She also seemed totally normal to me during the meeting in terms of her behavior, but the comment was made that it was nice to see her talking so much and being so animated.....because she is always so quiet. My mom was like that as a child and really struggled with her shyness....Even today as an adult my mom will not ask for help if she doesn't know something...she's even called me and said "what should I do?" "Ummmm, ask the office administrator" It's funny how that kind of a thing seems to be....in the family! I'm such a blabbermouth that I can't really understand, sadly! :>

Last week Thomas and I went to Gasthaus here (an annual celeration) with our good friends ...They're both docs but she only recently finished residency because she was busy raising their 3 kids. It is awesome to get together with them because she is American and her dh is German....We all slip in and out of german, can talk about cultural issues and she gets the cultural thing in a way that many of my friends who don't have cultural barriers don't. We had a great time...the food was good, the beer was fabulous and the music was good too....

Enjoying the atmosphere.....Thomas in the middle of a word when the picture was snapped :>



For our 4 day weekend, we stayed at a hotel....


Aidan swimming...he swam all day long and fell right into bed that night!


Zoe....wahooooo


Alex showing off his eyeball prize


Amanda and her squishy ball....her overshirt got soaking wet because she was helping me in the pool with Zoe and got splashed. (Just fyi..she's not usually allowed to walk around without an overshirt on. We jut were too lazy to go back to the room...and...we were in a pool area with people in swimsuits anyway)


Andrew playing the games.

ohhhh...and I love this pic of Zoe driving.


vrooom, vrooooom

shudder..... [/quote]